48. A Trip

On Octo­ber 28, 1969, in a dis­play of inde­pen­dence and mild defi­ance, Kya Clark set off on a brief jour­ney away from the seclu­sion of the marsh­es to the bustling town of Barkley Cove. With only a fad­ed suit­case and a knap­sack filled with neces­si­ties, includ­ing books and a lit­tle mon­ey, she left behind the major­i­ty of her earn­ings, con­ceal­ing them near the lagoon. Dressed unas­sum­ing­ly in a brown skirt, white blouse, and flats from Sears, Roe­buck, she nav­i­gat­ed the stares of towns­folk with a sub­dued dig­ni­ty, their curios­i­ty piqued yet again by her pres­ence.

Kya’s des­ti­na­tion was Greenville, a choice that prompt­ed whis­pers and spec­u­la­tion among the local com­mu­ni­ty. The Trail­ways bus ride, an expe­ri­ence as dis­tant from her life in the wild as one could imag­ine, was unevent­ful but marked a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture from her dai­ly exis­tence. Upon her return two days lat­er, the recep­tion was much the same, with the addi­tion of whis­pers like­ly fueled by her rare and brief absence from the marsh­es. Yet, Kya’s focus remained unde­terred; she desired only to return to her sanc­tu­ary, to the gulls and the free­dom of the marsh.

How­ev­er, the calm­ness of her return was shat­tered the fol­low­ing day when she was con­front­ed with shock­ing news by Jumpin’, a friend and con­fi­dant. Chase Andrews, a piv­otal fig­ure in Kya’s life and in the Barkley Cove com­mu­ni­ty, was dead. This rev­e­la­tion threat­ened to upend the frag­ile peace Kya had cul­ti­vat­ed amidst the wilder­ness and rumors that con­stant­ly swirled around her. The news of Chase’s death, and the impli­ca­tion of it coin­cid­ing with her trip, intro­duced an omi­nous cloud over her return, hint­ing at the com­plex­i­ties and chal­lenges that lay ahead in the wake of this tragedy.